This year, the theme for International Women’s Day on March 8 is ‘Make It Happen’. To celebrate the success of women entrepreneurs in Canada, we are dedicating this month’s Small Business Spotlight to someone who has made it happen for herself, her family and her community.
Jada Bohmer of
3 Little Gems is a mother, entrepreneur, and small business owner. She has made a successful career by creating and selling one-of-a-kind, hand-stamped jewellery.
Hailing from a small town on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Jada sells her unique pieces online to fashionistas from all over the world including Australia, Dubai and the U.K. Last year, her talents earned her a ticket to Hollywood where she presented her jewellery in the gifting lounge of the Daytime Emmy® Awards.
Before starting 3 Little Gems, Jada was helping her husband manage the books at his heating and plumbing shop. While organizing the office, she found a stamp her husband used to mark his tools. The stamp inspired her to try the technique on different materials. Hundreds of hand-stamped industrial washers later, she felt ready to give it a try on jewellery-grade metal, creating charms for bracelets and necklaces.
Around this same time, Jada was feeling unfulfilled professionally and torn between working full-time or staying home with her growing family. That’s when she committed to making her jewellery business, 3 Little Gems, a success, allowing her to do both.
In 2013, a client asked Jada to create a custom piece to help fundraise for
Jesse’s Gift, a charity whose goal at the time was to raise money for new equipment at the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. She created a custom bracelet for the charity and sold it online. $10 from every purchase was donated to the charity. With Jada’s help along with countless other supporters, Jesse’s Gift met its $60,000 donation goal. The fundraiser jewellery concept was so positively received that 3 Little Gems now offers this service to anyone who wants to raise money for a charity. So far, Jada has created 20 custom fundraiser jewellery lines.
Beyond 3 Little Gems, Jada hopes to inspire and empower other women to consider self-employment. Working during “school hours”, Jada employs another Mom in her community and as her design repertoire grows, she’d like to employ more mothers so they can work and enjoy the same work life balance she feels she is fortunate to have.
"If you are looking to open your own business, find something you have a passion for. Don't think that it can't be done or that you won't succeed because you can, and you will. Positive thinking is the key to my success. I am not lucky and I'm not more talented than the next person. I believed, in my core, that 3 Little Gems would be a success and I didn't see failure as an option. Be grateful every step of the way, even if life throws you a curve ball. Be thankful for what you can learn from it, and it will help you be better at what you do." - Jada Bohmer, 2 Little Gems